Detective
by The Deceiving Maiden
Summary: Sigmund Memory 60 Min Challenge, Day 7: Detective. Eva and Neil were putting their detective skills to the test in a Harry Potter themed escape room.


**Deceiver: Okay let's get back to the TTM 60 minutes prompt!**

~.~.~.~.~

**Detective**

~.~.~.~.~

"Okay, this is getting stupid," Neil grumbled as he walked up and down the dim hall for the umpth time for the past five minutes. Eva was actually thinking of what to do next as she stared at six portraits hanging on the wall with the ultra violet flashlight she was given by the staff. "There is no way we can find the hidden room if they don't give us any clues!"

"There are clues, Neil. You're just too much of a moron to figure them out," Eva said without turning to him, still focusing on the portraits. Eva knew they were the clues they were looking for to open the way to the hidden room, yet she couldn't understand what it meant. Some of the them had glowing nose, eyes, ears and mouth, and below them had one word glowing in bright blue colours when she shined her flashlight on it.

**What do they spell?**

Eva looked back up at the portraits. What do they spell? They didn't spell anything! Nose. Eyes. Ears. Ears. Mouth. Ears. This didn't make much sense! Stupid Neil choose one of the hardest level for the escape room, just because it was a Harry Potter themed.

Neil glanced back at her, blowing a raspberry before going back to pacing up and down the hall. He wasn't looking at anywhere in particular. It was too dark and these flimsy UV flashlights didn't really light the way. Bored, he started just flashing at random places, hoping maybe the door would be shown if he just shone randomly at-

"Huh?" Neil walked over to a certain glow at the other side of the hall, he stared at it, blinking at what it was before looking back at Eva and the portraits. He gave it a thought, looking back and forth, and it seemed to have hit her.

"Hey, Eva!" Neil called over to her, and all he could hear was a groan in response. "For the first portrait, what part of it is glowing?"

"Huh?" Eva turned to him, confused. "The nose, duh."

"And the next one?" he began to reread the thing he found, feeling something from this.

"The eyes?"

"Next!"

"Ears. Ears again?"

"What else?"

"The mouth…for pineapples sakes, why don't you just come over and see for your…!?"

As Eva stomped over, she stopped in her tracks at what Neil found. The wall he was shining his flashlight on had scribbles on it, showing it was a list of human parts corresponding to what part of the alphabet.

It didn't show all the alphabet, but it went like this.

**Head: A  
Neck: E  
Eyes: I  
Nose: M  
Hair: N  
Mouth: O  
Ears: R  
Shoulder: T**

Eva blinked at the words, looking back at the portraits for a second before finally everything clicked. The portraits were spelling something. Nose. Eyes. Ears. Ears. Mouth. Ears again…

**MIRROR**

"The Mirror of Erised!" both Eva and Neil chorused before they raced back to the first room they were in. They had seen it earlier, but thought it part of the decoration and that was it. Luckily to way back to it was easy, didn't need to redo any puzzles to unlock the door to it.

"Over there!" Neil rushed over, staring at his own reflection and hoped something would just happen now that they figured out the Mirror was the next clue. Eva knew it wouldn't be easy though. They had to _make _it show them the answer, but they were running out of time. She looked around, trying to think what else looked like it could help them. They had searched this entire room earlier after all.

Looking to her side, she noticed something that had always bothered her. There was one orb to the left of the Mirror, and one to the right. Now Eva always thought why were they placed beside the Mirror, as it looked out and suspicious.

Well, since the Mirror was not a decoration…and this room _was _meant for more than two people…

Two people could handle this just fine, thank you very much.

"Neil," Eva tugged at his sleeve, drawing his attention. "Let's try touching the orbs."

He stared back. "Um…why?"

"They must be part of the clue to the hidden," she told him calmly. They needed to be calm since they were running out of time. They should be used to putting under this sort of pressure at work, so no more panicking. "C'mon. Let's try touching them together to see if they do anything."

He gave it a thought. "Alright. But only because we never bothered with these weird balls stuck to the wall."

Both of them walked over to where the orbs were, with Eva touching one and Neil touching the other. No response from the Mirror yet, making the brunet frown. "C'mon! What more do we need!"

Eva tried to think. "This had to be it though."

"We want to go to the hidden room!" Neil let the orb go and stood in front of the mirror again. "Abracadabra! Hocus pocus! Alohomora!"

Eva rolled her eyes, about to say something, but blinked. Neil was standing in front of the mirror, when earlier they were standing at the side and not looking into it.

Maybe…

"We have to look into it too!" Eva quickly joined him, one of her hands still on the orb while the other pushed at Neil's shoulder. "Quick! Touch your orb again!"

Neil was taken aback by her suddenly being so passionate, but with no questions asked, he did as told. At once, their reflection vanished, showing the hidden room was just on the other side of the Mirror. And with a _click_, the glass slowly slid up, allowing them in.

"The Slytherin Emblem!" Neil quickly rushed in to snatch the thing off the table. Eva quickly followed, stopping him as she examined the furniture more closely.

"It's a magic circle," she said, looking around to see if there was anymore clues. They had reached the hidden room, yes, but they were told to gather all four of the Hogwart's House Emblems to use them in this room. There was only a piece of paper hanging on the other side of the wall for them to read.

**Place all four of  
the House Emblems  
in their rightful place **

"Well easy peasy!" Neil whistled as he fished out the rest of the Emblems he had kept in his pocket. Eva watched him place each of the Emblem at a distinct location in the magic circle (shown clearly by the letters written in that area), couldn't believe this was considered a hard puzzle now that this was coming to an end.

As he placed the last Emblem in its place though, it shouldn't be a surprise to them that nothing happened. "Did we do something wrong?" Neil looked up in question.

"No?" Eva reread the paper again. "They're placed in their right place, right?"

"Yeah! I double checked!" And Neil checked in thrice.

This was getting annoying. "Um…okay. Calm down." Eva tried to think rationally. "Ah! Maybe the Slytherin Emblem is a fake? Like the locket from Half-blood Prince!"

"Doubt it," Neil showed her all the Emblems. "If it was a fake, it would be more obvious."

"Dammit." Eva checked the time. 10 minutes left. "Okay, let's sweep through all the rooms. Maybe we missed something in the end in order to finish this."

"Aw c'mon!" Neil whined, but too late, Eva already left. They split up, searched every nook and cranny, every box they unlocked and reactivated all the puzzles to see if they missed anything. Nothing special popped up.

"We're running out of time," Eva breathed, not wanting to lose when they were so close. Neil tossed one of the Emblems in the air, trying to think for her. Did they missed anything? Any clues they missed? They couldn't have as they read everything that was given to them. The staff just said find the Emblems and use them together in the hidden room. Which was here…

Neil paused for a second. So did Eva. They glanced at each other, thinking this was unlikely but it was worth a try. Neil handed her the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff Emblems, while Neil kept the Slytherin and Gryffindor ones.

"Together," they said to each other, getting into place by standing at the opposite ends of the table and facing each other. Taking a deep breathe, they pressed the Emblems into their place in the magic circle at the same time.

**Ding!**

The door opened and the staff who lead them into this escape room gave them a round of applause. "Congratulations!" she cheered, going into a rambling praise. "I didn't think you two could manage but you two did! Honestly thought you two would be stumped since this was a difficult level, especially when customers always get stumped at the The Mirror of Erised part! But nope! You two figured it out! And oh! Especially at this last part! Our customers often seem to forget you're supposed to use Emblems _together_. So so? How did you two manage to figure it out? Would you like to try another room next time, but harder? Hmmm?"

Think this stuff was just kissing butts, both Eva and Neil just glanced at each other. And honestly…well…

"Well, like I said earlier before we came in," Neil pushed his super-reflective glasses up with a swagger. "We are the bestest detectives. Of course we could solve it."

And Eva couldn't help it but smirk. "And we always succeed. Because we are that awesome."


End file.
